WEST MIFFLIN, Pa. (AP) - Kennywood Park in West Mifflin is planning a new roller coaster that will take riders from zero to 50 mph in about three seconds.
Kennywood spokesman Jeff Filicko says the coaster, which will be ready next year, uses new coaster technology to achieve the rocket-like start.
The as-yet-unnamed coaster will replace the Turnpike, a slow ride that uses individual cars on a track.
The new coaster will also take riders upside down three times after a 95-foot vertical climb and drop.

NEW YORK (AP) - Tim McGraw and the Black Eyed Peas are scheduled to perform before the NFL season opener.
The NFL announced the musical artists Wednesday for the game between the Super Bowl champion Steelers and the Tennessee Titans in Pittsburgh on Thursday, Sept. 10.
McGraw and Black Eyed Peas, both three-time Grammy winners, will hold a free concert open to the public at Point State Park.
Natasha Bedingfield, Keith Urban and Usher performed before last year’s opener in New York.
EA Sports sponsors the event.

PITTSBURGH - Cirque du Soleil will return to Pittsburgh in October.The Montreal-based circus will perform eight shows, starting Oct. 7, at the Petersen Events Center on the University of Pittsburgh campus.

Tickets are available now for Cirque Club members, with the general on-sale starting 11 a.m. Aug. 17 by calling Ticketmaster at (412) 323-1919 or visiting www.cirquedusoleil.com/alegria.

The Pittsburgh show, “Alegria,” will feature 55 performers and musicians from 17 countries. Acts include the Synchro Trapeze and high-speed aerial high bars, where aerialists fly 40 feet above the stage.

“Alegria” has entertained 10 million people worldwide since its April 1994 debut. The name, translated from Spanish, means “happiness, joy and jubilation,” reflecting the show’s operatic look at the struggle for power and the invigorating energy of youth.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Authorities say the man who carried out a massacre in a women’s aerobics class near Pittsburgh was questioned, searched and ultimately let go by police a week before the shooting.
Port Authority of Allegheny County spokesman Jim Ritchie said Friday that police talked to 48-year-old George Sodini after a city bus passenger reported seeing a man with a grenade on the vehicle on July 28.
Police say the witness could not identify Sodini as the man, and the matter was dropped.
Sodini fatally shot three women and wounded nine others at an L.A. Fitness club in Collier Township on Aug. 4. He fatally shot himself at the club.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Friends, relatives and co-workers are paying their respects at a suburban Pittsburgh funeral home to two of the women slain at a health club this week.
Loved ones gathered Friday afternoon at the William Slater funeral home in Scott Township for 49-year-old Betsy Gannon, of Pittsburgh.
A viewing is being held across the hall for 46-year-old Heidi Overmier, of Carnegie, who worked at the Kennywood amusement park.
Funerals are scheduled for both women Saturday at separate churches.
A viewing for the third victim, 37-year-old Jody Billingsley, of Mount Lebanon, will be held Sunday.
Forty-eight-year-old George Sodini opened fire on an aerobics class this week, then killed himself. Police say he didn’t know the victims.

By Joe Mandak and Ben Dobbin, Associated Press Writers
PITTSBURGH (AP) - The man who went on a deadly shooting rampage at a Pittsburgh-area health club shares a chilling trait with other mass killers, an expert says: the desire to make their woes understood through multiple deaths.
No indication has surfaced that George Sodini had documented mental problems, but his massacre shares threads with others analyzed by psychiatrists and legal experts, who say the line between lonely and homicidal remains hard to place.
“They’re thinking,

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Four of the women wounded in a shooting rampage at a suburban Pittsburgh health club Tuesday night remain hospitalized.
Two women are listed in fair condition at Allegheny General Hospital. Twenty-two-year-old Heather Sherba of Collier Township expects to be discharged Friday. The aerobics instructor, 26-year-old Mary Primis of Moon Township, has been moved out of intensive care.
Two other women are being treated at UPMC Mercy Hospital. One remained in serious condition Friday, while the other is listed as fair.
George Sodini opened fire at an L.A. Fitness health club in Bridgeville Tuesday night, killing three women and injuring nine more before committing suicide.

BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. (AP) - The gunman who killed three women and wounded nine others at a Pittsburgh-area health club bought accessories for a handgun from the same Wisconsin-based dealer that sold a gun to the Virginia Tech shooter.
Forty-eight-year-old George Sodini bought the accessories from TGSCOM Inc. of Green Bay, Wis.
Police investigating Tuesday’s shootings at the L.A. Fitness center in Collier Township have said Sodini bought his weapons legally.
TGSCOM’s president, Eric Thompson, confirmed the purchases after WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh obtained a receipt. Thompson says he’s cooperating with investigators.
Sodini committed suicide after the shootings, as did Seung-Hui Cho who bought a .22-caliber handgun from TGSCOM in February 2007, two months before he killed 32 people at Virginia Tech.

BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. (AP) - Police in Pennsylvania say a gunman who sprayed bullets at women exercising at his suburban Pittsburgh health club, killing three of them, did not have a relationship with any of the victims.
Allegheny County police Superintendent Charles Moffatt also says that the 48-year-old gunman, George Sodini, had four guns on him and used three of them in the attack.
Sodini was a member of the L.A. Fitness club and had been there two times Tuesday before he came back at night.
Sodini killed three women and wounded nine others. He then killed himself.

BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. (AP) - A man who sprayed bullets into a fitness class filled with women, killing three and then himself, apparently kept a Web page in which he wrote about years of rejection by women and an earlier plan for violence at the gym in which he said he “chickened out.”
Neighbors described 48-year-old George Sodini, who worked in a law firm’s finance department, as anti-social, and the Web page in his name showcased a resume setting forth his credentials as an unhappy loner. It listed his date of death - Aug. 4, 2009 - and his status of “Never married.”
He complained of not having a girlfriend since 1984, not having a date since May 2008 and not having sex for 19 years.
“Women just don’t like me. There are 30 million desirable women in the US (my estimate) and I cannot find one,” he wrote. The page ended with the words “Death Lives!
On Tuesday night, the gunman walked into the fitness center wearing workout gear and a headband, entered a “Latin impact” dance aerobics class and placed a duffel bag on the ground. He rooted around in the bag for a moment, turned off the lights, took out at least two guns and started shooting.
Three women were killed and nine women were injured. Police say he may have fired as many as 52 shots before turning the gun on himself and committing suicide.
Authorities on Wednesday identified the gunman as Sodini, of nearby Scott Township. The three women who died were Heidi Overmier, 46, of Carnegie; Elizabeth Gannon, 49, of Pittsburgh; and Jody Billingsley, 38, of Mount Lebanon.